Editing Michael Redgrave (section)

===1970s===
At the [[Mermaid Theatre]] in July 1971 he played Mr Jaraby in ''The Old Boys'' (William Trevor) and had an unfortunate experience: "My memory went, and on the first night they made me wear a deaf aid to hear some lines from the prompter and it literally fell to pieces – there were little bits of machinery all over the floor, so I then knew I really couldn't go on, at least not learning new plays."<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Nevertheless, he successfully took over the part of Father in [[John Mortimer]]'s ''[[A Voyage Round My Father]]'' at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, also touring Canada and Australia in the role in 1972–73.

In 1973, he played a supporting role in [[David Winters (choreographer)|David Winters]]' musical television film adaptation of ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'', starring [[Kirk Douglas]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=3 April 1973|title=Musical Version of 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' Stars Kirk Douglas|work=The Mexia Daily New|volume=74}}</ref>

He returned to the international touring of ''A Voyage Round My Father'' in 1974–75 with a Royal Shakespeare Company production of ''The Hollow Crown'', visiting major venues in the US, New Zealand and Australia, while in 1976–77 he toured South America, Canada, the UK and the United States in the anthology, ''Shakespeare's People''.

Redgrave's final theatre appearance came in May 1979 when he portrayed Jasper in [[Simon Gray]]'s ''Close of Play'', directed on the Lyttelton stage at the National Theatre by [[Harold Pinter]]. It was a silent, seated role, based on Gray's own father, who had died a year before he wrote the play. As Gray has said: "Jasper is in fact dead but is forced to endure, as if alive, a traditional English Sunday, helpless in his favourite armchair as his three sons and their wives fall to pieces in the usual English middle class style, sometimes blaming him, sometimes appealing to him for help and sobbing at his feet for forgiveness, but basically ignoring him. In other words I had stuck him in Hell, which turns out to be 'life, old life itself'."<ref>''An Unnatural Pursuit and Other Pieces'' by Simon Gray, Faber (1985)</ref>

His final work, in 1975, a narrative of the epic poem, ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]'', by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], a poem that Redgrave taught as a young schoolmaster and visualised by producer-director Raul da Silva, received six international film festival prizes of which five were first place in category. This work was to be his last before the onslaught of [[Parkinson's disease]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Bowker's Complete Video Directory, Volume 4|year=1998|publisher=R.R. Bowker|location=New York|isbn=978-0835240147|page=1972}}</ref>